


Why I gave up on my father

by ctrlaltcookie



Category: Original Work, biographical - Fandom, nonfiction - Fandom
Genre: Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Child Neglect, Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:08:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23310640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ctrlaltcookie/pseuds/ctrlaltcookie
Summary: This is a biographical short about why and when i gave up trying to keep in touch with my father. It's about a dog and the space around the dog. There is implied threat and violence that i wouldn't categorise as graphical but I've applied it anyway because i believe that over warning is better than under warning.I didn't cut contact fully until i was 25, i wish i had the courage to have walked away from him fully at the time but i didn't. Sometimes i can't sleep because of memories and because of shame and guilt. I hope that in writing this it will help to bury these memories. I also hope that anyone reading this with a similar feelings and memories of grief around a person who was not the parent they should have been can know that, you aren't alone. It wasn't and isn't your fault. You aren't wrong for keeping or severing contact, whatever you decide, others who have gone through the same things, support you and believe in you.Be well, be kind, be better than you were taught.
Kudos: 2





	Why I gave up on my father

I've known my father was capable of doing great evil since I was seven when he punched his way through the steel reinforced glass of my front door while trying to get to my mother.

In the way children do I compartmentalised this and somehow accepted two versions of him, the loving one who cared for me and my sisters and the one who gave me ptsd.

I think because I was young it was easy to forgive.

I gave up on the man as irredeemable because of a dog, his new dog at the time, a golden retriever. To my shame, I don't remember its name, it's been too long, but it was, briefly, a lovely dog. She was skinny and worried when he first adopted her, she hadn't been looked after properly by previous owners, he said, he was rescuing her, he said, she had belonged to a mate, he said he wanted to give her a better life. I was 16 when he got her, I was 17 when she went missing.

She was skittish and unsure of herself at first, she didn't like being inside. The first few months he had her she got fatter and happier, i saw her every other weekend and she had new toys, water bowl, collar, her coat greatly improved, she seemed skittish around my dad but was playful with me and my sisters. Her tail perked up and honestly she was doing really well, being a kid and not knowing the cyclical nature of things I just thought that it was getting better, brighter, but the light was just the illusion of summer, a hot day in a cold decade.

My dad was a porter at the uni at the time, he had cut back drinking and was doing well, the money he had coming in paid rent and his mood was lifting, it was an uptick in an otherwise downward spiralling life. He bought things for the dog then things for himself, a punching bag appeared in his hallway, his old tv moved upstairs and a slightly bigger nicer one appeared downstairs. He stopped sleeping in his living room and the floors got cleaner, we helped cut his front garden and he started fixing up the back yard, tomatoes got planted and strawberries. He started painting his shed. He bought a car and laughed in a way id not seen outside of dusty memories. We ate well and watched spaghetti westerns together. I brought my playstation and played final fantasy 8 on his tv. We hung out together. It felt like I had a dad again.

But that was the last time.

He got fired. 

He always got fired.

Eventually.

It was inevitable, a manic depressive addict that was never diagnosed as either, some trivial thing would happen at work and then he would self sabotage until he had an excuse to wallow in drugs and alcohol.

I don't know why he got fired. My cousin said stealing, my aunt said a fight, my mum thought drinking, his neighbour said inappropriate behaviour toward a girl at the uni.

I don't know. I hope it wasn't the latter but what i know of him now i cant put it past him. I can't find out because even simple things like where he got a new pair of shoes always had four stories dependent on mood.

He wouldn't tell us he got fired. Not right away, but the evidence was there. 

The house would start to decay. The garden would slowly fall into disarray. The tomatoes grew out of control, the strawberries never ripened, rotting green on their vine. The floor would get littered with debris, bits of outside leaking in. He'd ask us to buy our own dinner, or pay the coop using cheques he'd joke were made of rubber. Phil's famous bouncy cheques my aunty would say. She'd be around more often when things slipped, she'd pay for things, then we'd be going to her house instead of his and he'd disappear for hours at a time, so we were really visiting her on those trips. He'd tell her we parked near the big tesco but he'd really make us walk 3 miles to get to her house. He wasn't safe to drive or wasn't allowed, or couldn't afford it, or didn't want to risk getting caught.

These things didn't stop him all the time, at his very worst he would pick us up at the train station drunk, if he remembered to come at all. He'd be late, his car would reek, he would tell me he hurt his knee, that's why he walked slow.I realise now he just didn't want to stumble.

Eventually he never came and we had to walk to his house and knock on his door until he answered. Eventually he didn't always answer. 

My sisters stopped coming.

I think when he disappeared he went to get drunk or do drugs but i don't know because my aunty would never say.

So I'll never know because he'll tell a different truth every time he's asked.

After a while the dog stopped having food in her bowl when I came over, so I'd fill it. Then the water bowl was always empty, so i'd fill it. Then I had to buy bags of food for her at the co-op with my own money because he couldn't afford it that weekend. Then she was always leashed outside and wasn't allowed in the house. Then she started looking mangy and her ears were always flat. Then she walked funny and sat most of the time. Then my dad started calling her it and he wouldn't let us pet her anymore. Then my dad said it was in the back garden and we should leave it alone because it had started biting. Then he told me it ran away. Then the bowls were gone.

Then I never saw her again.

He gave a lot of stories about what happened, her old owners wanted her back, his sister took her, she ran away, he released her into the streets, he sold her, he lost her when drunk, his neighbours stole her, the rspca took her, what dog i don't remember a dog, she's in the garden still, he ate her, she was a running dog and was making money as a racer and eventually, he just stopped answering questions at all.

I pieced together what happened near christmas at 17.

He had a dog before her, for more than 20 years, it was an old angry dog called cassey, a violent jack-russell that bit and chased us. She died when I was 9 or 10. He mistreated her but i believe she died of old age and he buried her in his back garden, near a tree at the back fence. He did a poor job of it and the grave sunk. That sunken patch upset me and I always noticed it when playing with the golden retriever.

I don't know what happened, again, I'll never know for sure and it's pointless even asking. If he knew the truth he's forgotten it, but really he was never interested in it in the first place. His mind is melted ice cream, there are solid bits that he'll never forget but for the most part he views truth as liquid and malleable, whatever will make him look good in the moment is what he truly believes happened.

All i know, all i will ever know for sure, is that a second sunken patch appeared in his garden and i never visited his house again.


End file.
